Officials with Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, which oversees the joint fight against ISIS, said the departure of the roughly 400 troops from 1st Battalion, 10th Marines was an indicator of the success they and coalition forces have seen on the battlefield.

“With the city liberated and ISIS on the run, the unit has been ordered home,” officials said in an announcement Thursday morning. “It’s replacements have been called off.”

Raqqa, in Northern Syria, is the self-identified capital city for ISIS. As of this summer, it was the only Syrian city and population hub that remained under the control of the military group. A concentrated siege on Raqqa by U.S.-backed forces began June 6; Raqqa was publicly declared liberated Oct. 20. According to task force officials, some 2,500 ISIS fighters were believed to be inside Raqqa when the fight began.

For the entirety of that fight, Marine artillery units armed with M777 howitzers have been on the ground providing supporting fire. A detachment from the deployed 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived on the ground in early 2017, and was replaced by 1st Battalion, 10th Marines, in mid-September.

“With a 155mm artillery battery in the fight, their mission was to deny and disrupt ISIS from gaining ground or moving from their defensive positions,” Lt. Col. Jon O’Gorman, chief of fires for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a statement. “These Marines rained relentless and highly accurate firepower on the enemy.”

The current detachment of Marines has earned special accolades for its grit and effectiveness.

Earlier this month, the commanding general of 2nd Marine Division, Maj. Gen. John Love, said the 1/10 battery had “killed more ISIS than anyone” with strategic fires and coordination with air assets.

The announcement that Marine artillery will now be pulled out of the region and not be replaced is somewhat unexpected; Love told Military.com this month that 1/10 was set to be part of a long-term rotation that would maintain artillery presence in the ISIS fight.

“The departure of these outstanding Marines is a sign of real progress in the region,” CJTF-OIR director of operations, Brig. Gen. Jonathan Braga, said in a statement. “We’re drawing down combat forces where it makes sense, but still continuing our efforts to help Syrian and Iraqi partners maintain security.

Braga added that forces remaining in country would continue to work with local partner forces to prevent a resurgence of ISIS militants, defeat remaining pockets of ISIS presence, and enable international governments and non-government organizations to come in and help civilians recover.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/30/victory-raqqa-marine-unit-syria-home/feed/037824https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/30/victory-raqqa-marine-unit-syria-home/Retired Admiral Latest to Face Censure in Fat Leonard Scandalhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/eIcw-71w3fw/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/30/retired-admiral-censure-fat-leonard-scandal/#respondThu, 30 Nov 2017 14:00:01 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37827A former commander of the carrier Ronald Reagan inappropriately accepted gifts and set a “wholly unethical tone of leadership,” the Secretary of the Navy announced Wednesday.

Rear Adm. Kenneth Norton, who retired from the Navy in 2014, is the latest of dozens of Navy officers, active and retired, to face discipline or rebuke for their role in what has become known as the “Fat Leonard” bribery scandal.

Norton interacted with Glenn Defense Marine Asia, the company at the heart of the scandal, between 2008 and 2010 while commanding the Ronald Reagan in the Pacific, according to a Navy release. Leonard Glenn Francis, the owner of the company, was found to have bribed military officers with money, special perks, and prostitutes in exchange for information about ship movements and other classified material.

A “thorough review” of Norton’s interactions with the company found that his conduct did not conform to the Navy’s ethical standards and showed “exceedingly poor judgment and leadership,” bringing “ill-repute and disgrace” upon the Navy, according to the release.

Navy officials did not specify what the nature of Norton’s misconduct was or what he received from GDMA.

After reviewing the findings and recommendation of the Consolidated Disposition Authority for GDMA matters, I decided that Rear Adm. (ret.) Norton’s conduct reflected improper personal behavior and set a wholly unethical tone of leadership. Censure was both necessary and appropriate,” Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer said in a statement.

According to Norton’s official biography, he was commissioned in 1981 and served a command tour aboard the now-decommissioned fast combat support ship Camden prior to commanding the Ronald Reagan. Both ships earned the Battle “E” award for effectiveness under his leadership.

The investigation into GDMA’s activities began in March 2014 under then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.

“Fat Leonard” Francis himself pleaded guilty in U.S. Federal Court in 2015 to bribing military officers.

Some 200 Navy personnel have been caught up in the Fat Leonard Scandal. To date, 14 Navy officials have pleaded guilty and another five officers are awaiting court-martial.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/30/retired-admiral-censure-fat-leonard-scandal/feed/037827https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/30/retired-admiral-censure-fat-leonard-scandal/More Than 1K US Troops to Join Afghans on Offense: Nicholsonhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/F_kkryP7ZPA/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/28/1k-us-troops-afghans-offense/#respondWed, 29 Nov 2017 01:29:57 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37821More than 1,000 specially-trained U.S. advisors will go on offense with Afghan units at the battalion level in the spring under an ambitious plan to reverse Taliban gains and drive the insurgents to the bargaining table in two years, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Tuesday.

“Yes, there will be greater risk, absolutely” for the advisors now training at Fort Benning, Georgia, to serve in the new Security Force Assistance Brigades [SFAB] with the Afghans, said Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S.-Forces Afghanistan and the NATO Resolute Support mission.

Working as teams, the SFAB troops from all services will be involved in “combat advising at the tactical level, so they’ll go down to the “Kandak” level, the battalion level” with units of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan Special Forces, Nicholson said in a video briefing from Kabul to the Pentagon.

“This will enable us to help the Afghans with their offensive operations simultaneously in multiple quarters” with the goal of gaining control of 80 percent of the population within two years and possibly forcing the Taliban into peace talks on ending the 16-year-old war, Nicholson said.

When the plan goes operational next spring, “you’re looking at well over 1000 advisors out at any given time” with the Afghans, Nicholson said. “As we roll into the spring — March/April — they will go on the offensive. ”

To limit risk, “we’re going to great lengths to ensure force protection” with a “whole array of support behind them” to include overhead reconnaissance, ground and air fire support, and medevac availability when they go into the field, Nicholson said.

The plan to put advisors in the field grew out of President Donald Trump’s Aug. 21 decision to switch to a “conditions-based” strategy in Afghanistan and authorize the deployment of at least 3,000 additional troops, Nicholson said.

Trump has acknowledged that he made the decision on the new strategy reluctantly and against his initial instinct, which was to withdraw U.S. forces completely.

Trump also reportedly wanted to sack Nicholson, but was talked out of it by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, a former commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan.

Nicholson has repeatedly said that the war was at a “stalemate,’ but he called the new strategy a “game-changer,” adding that “It’s fair to say we’re on a path to a win.”

The Pentagon now says that there are 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, although a Defense Manpower Data Center report prepared in September and released earlier this month said there were 15,298 U.S. service members in Afghanistan.

With the additional forces, the U.S. is now committed to Afghanistan indefinitely, Nicholson said. “We will be here until the job is done.” he said.

As he has previously, Nicholson took issue with reports from United Nations agencies, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction [SIGAR] and think tanks which have portrayed a resilient Taliban increasingly well-funded by the booming poppy trade that supplies much of the world’s heroin.

Nicholson said that the Taliban had given up on trying to seize provincial capitals and was now focused on guerilla warfare at the district level. He said that “represented a lowering of ambition by the enemy.”

“Increasingly, they are principally interested in making money” from the drug trade, Nicholson. “They are fighting to protect their revenue stream” and have essentially transformed from a jihadi movement into a “narco-terrorist” drug cartel, he said.

Coupled with the new U.S. strategy, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani with coalition backing has embarked on revamping the entire command structure of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces [ANDSF].

Ghani has replaced four of five corps commanders, Nicholson said, and next year will push 2,150 colonels and generals into retirement “with dignity” to allow a younger generation of officers to assume command.

To curb corruption in the Afghan forces, Nicholson said that the U.S. was initiating another round of identity verification to eliminate from the rolls so-called “ghost soldiers” — those who draw salaries but are absent from the ranks.

The U.S. has tried biometrical data such as retinal scans and fingerprinting before, but Nicholson expressed confidence that the new effort would yield results to ensure that pay only goes to a “biometrically identified soldier.”

Nicholson was less confident on receiving cooperation from Pakistan, which Trump has deemed as essential in carrying out the new strategy.

The Taliban still maintain well-known safe havens in the Quetta and Peshawar areas of Pakistan, Nicholson said, and fighters crossing from Pakistan provide recruits for the Islamic State offshoot known as Islamic State-Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K.

“We have been very direct and very clear with the Pakistanis” on curbing the Taliban, Nicholson said, but “we have not seen those changes implemented yet.”

“We are hoping to see those changes, we are hoping to work together with the Pakistanis going forward to eliminate terrorists who are crossing” the border, Nicholson said.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/28/1k-us-troops-afghans-offense/feed/037821https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/28/1k-us-troops-afghans-offense/War in Afghanistan Heats Up as Fight Against ISIS Winds Downhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/4J_kLG62Jv8/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/27/war-afghanistan-fight-isis/#respondTue, 28 Nov 2017 00:31:59 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37812Another telling sign that the wars against ISIS in Iraq and Syria were winding down and entering the counter-insurgency phase recently came from the U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and the NATO Resolute Support mission, said that he had used a B-52 bomber and an F-22 Raptor advanced fighter normally assigned to the Iraq/Syria theaters to bomb suspected drug havens in Afghanistan.

The use of the B-52, flying out of Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, and the F-22, flying out of Al Dhafra airbase in the United Arab Emirates, showed that “Things have gone well in Iraq and Syria,” Nicholson said last Monday in a video briefing from Kabul to the Pentagon.

“So we’re beginning to see the effects of a shift of resources” from Iraq and Syria to Afghanistan, Nicholson said. The shift “will increase over the course of the winter, going into the spring, as the situation continues to improve there” in Iraq and Syria.

As reported in September by Military.com’s Oriana Pawlyk, the Air Force has also sent refueling tankers to Afghanistan and boosted the number of F-16s in Afghanistan from 12 to 18.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, told reporters that he would be working with Nicholson’s staff “on how to best synchronize his advise-and-assist strategy going forward to optimize the placement of the air assets.”

Nicholson’s comments on the shift in assets followed on earlier statements by officials of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve [CJTF-OIR) that the effort to drive the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] from its last strongholds had reached the stage where the focus could be turned to recovery and counter-terror operations in both Iraq and Syria.

In a Nov. 7 briefing to the Pentagon from Iraq, Air Force Brig. Gen. Andrew Croft, deputy air commander of Combined Joint Forces Land Component CJTF-OIR, said that the number of air strikes has been dropping significantly as the coalition runs out of targets.

He said that “the level of air support, if you’re measuring it in number of strikes, has dropped by about 60 to 70 percent in the last month — that’s the month of October — compared to the previous average over the last eight or nine months.”

“That’s indicative of the fact that ISIS is collapsing, not only as a physical caliphate, but also in ownership of land,” Croft said. “So the number of targets has dropped dramatically, particularly in the last month.”

“From the air component perspective, you’re going to see those number of strikes drop even further,” Croft said, “but what you will see is a continued requirement for aircraft, such as our remotely piloted aircraft — those are the unmanned aircraft — and some manned aircraft to do surveillance and reconnaissance.”

In Iraq, “one of our challenges is continuing to find pockets of ISIS as they are — have moved to the desert, like the Jazira Desert, for instance, which is northeast of al-Qaim,” a town on the Syrian border that fell to the Iraqi Security Forces [ISF] earlier this month, Croft said.

On Friday, the Defense Department said in a release that a total of 10 airstrikes had been conducted in Iraq and Syria from Nov. 10-23. On several days in that period, there were no airstrikes, DoD said.

The diminishing threat from ISIS was outlined last week in a study by the Britain-based Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center [JTIC], which reported that the number of attacks in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level since ISIS declared a “caliphate” in 2014.

“Non-state armed group attacks and resulting fatalities represented the lowest monthly totals since the formation of ISIS and the declaration of the caliphate in June 2014, highlighting the extent of the decrease in operational activity by the group in Iraq,” the report said.

“The 126 attacks in October represented almost half the peak recorded in January 2017, while the 102 fatalities represented an 80.0 percent decrease from November 2016,” the report said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has been reluctant to declare that ISIS has been defeated in Iraq until the desert area north of al-Qaim is cleared. On Sunday, the ISF announced that a clearing operation in the desert had begun.

“The objective behind the operation is to prevent remaining Daesh [ISIS] groups from melting into the desert region and using it as a base for future attacks,” the ISF said.

Earlier this month, Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for CJTF-OIR, said operations against ISIS in Syria by the U.S-backed Syrian Democratic Forces had progressed to the point that State Department officials were now on the ground to participate in recovery efforts.

“Even as we remain focused on the defeat and destruction of ISIS, the coalition is supporting stabilization efforts, so Syrian cities like Raqqa and Tabqa can recover after years of fighting and brutal ISIS occupation,” Dillon said in a Nov. 14 briefing from Baghdad to the Pentagon.

“Many of these stabilization efforts in Syria are coordinated through the U.S. State Department’s Syrian Transition Assistance and Response Team, or START, and they support the locally-led civil councils” in areas ISIS has lost to the SDF, Dillon said.

The U.S. has previously been reluctant to confirm the presence U.S. aid workers in Syria, or even the existence of the START team. In June, the New York Times reported that seven START team members were in Syria.

However, the White House has repeatedly said that the U.S. will support minimal recovery efforts but will not engage in so-called “nation building.”

In August, Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, told reporters that the U.S. will be involved only in what he called “stabilization.”

“This is not reconstruction, it’s not nation building,” he said. “Stabilization is demining, rubble removal so that trucks and equipment can get into areas of need. It means basic electricity, sewage, water, the basic essentials to allow populations to come back to their home,” McGurk said.

“Now, sometimes we meet with local councils and they say, ‘We really want you, the United States, to help us with the–you’re going to run the hospitals, aren’t you? You’re going to run our school system.’ And no, we’re not–we’re not doing that,” McGurk said.

“We’ve learned some lessons and we’re not very good at that, and also that is not our responsibility. We will do basic stabilization,” he said.

As the ISIS “caliphate” crumbles, the main concern for the White House and DoD is that the sectarian rifts that gave rise to the jihadists in the first place will return.

In Iraq, the non-binding independence referendum held by the Kurdish Regional Government [KRG] in September led to clashes between the ISF and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and the loss by the KRG of the oil city of Kirkuk.

In Syria, NATO-ally Turkey has pressed the U.S. to stop arming the mostly-Kurdish SDF.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose support for the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad has mostly crushed rebel groups, showed his own eagerness to begin winding down the Russian presence.

Following a meeting with Assad in Crimea, Putin said “We still have a long way to go before we achieve a complete victory over terrorists. But as far as our joint work in fighting terrorism on the territory of Syria is concerned, this military operation is indeed wrapping up.”

Assad said that he gave Putin “and all Russian people our greetings and gratitude for all of the efforts that Russia made to save our country.”

Last Tuesday, President Donald Trump said “We had a great [phone] call with President Putin. We’re talking about peace in Syria — very important. We’re talking about North Korea. We had a call that lasted almost an hour and a half,” he said, and “we’re talking very strongly about bringing peace for Syria.”

In a statement later, the White House said that “Both presidents also stressed the importance of implementing U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254, and supporting the U.N.-led Geneva Process to peacefully resolve the Syrian civil war, end the humanitarian crisis, allow displaced Syrians to return home, and ensure the stability of a unified Syria free of malign intervention and terrorist safe havens.”

“The two presidents affirmed the importance of fighting terrorism together throughout the Middle East and Central Asia and agreed to explore ways to further cooperate in the fight against ISIS, al-Qaida, the Taliban, and other terrorist organizations,” the White House statement said.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/27/war-afghanistan-fight-isis/feed/037812https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/27/war-afghanistan-fight-isis/Marine Harrier ‘Departed Controlled Flight’ Before 2016 Water Crashhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/ivcy5qmXg2g/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/23/marine-harrier-departed-controlled-flight-2016-water-crash/#respondThu, 23 Nov 2017 05:20:13 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37807A command investigation into the Sept. 22, 2016, crash of a Marine CorpsAV-8B Harrier off Okinawa found that the pilot abruptly lost control of the aircraft around 13,000 feet, spiraling until ejection 1,800 feet above the water.

A heavily redacted version of the command investigation into the Sept. 22 crash, completed in April but not released to Military.com until this month, reveals little conclusive about the cause of the mishap. The aircraft, which ended up underwater, could not be inspected, leaving the investigator to rely on witness accounts and paperwork.

The Harrier, attached to Marine Attack Squadron 542, out of Cherry Point, North Carolina, had been deployed with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit at the time of the crash.

The mishap flight, however, originated from the ground. The mission of the day was a one-on-one, air-to-air tactics flight launching from Kadena Air Base in Japan.

The pilot of the mishap aircraft had joined the squadron in July 2015 and, like most of the Harrier community, was short on recent hours flown going into the mission. According to documents, the pilot had flown six hours in the previous 30 days, and just 13.3 hours total in the previous 60 days.

At the time of the crash, monthly pilot flight hours on the Harrier averaged 13, shy of the 15.4-hour goal, according to a Marine official.

The aircraft had four outstanding orders for maintenance, according to the investigation, but none deemed to pose a flight hazard. Problems requiring maintenance included two broken anchor nuts, a crack on an aft wall, and a crack on a water pipe bracket.

The mission of the day included multiple beyond-visual-range radar intercepts.

On the third intercept, the pilot of the mishap plane was flying level at 14,000 feet when he spotted the other aircraft to his right. He throttled to military power, the highest aircraft power setting without afterburners, and hit a sharp right turn to merge with the other aircraft.

Soon after, he lost sight of the other plane and began to conduct maneuvers in order to regain a visual: slowing down in the turn, moving throttle to idle, inverting, then eventually moving back to full military power. With his nose low and at that high power setting, he lost control of the aircraft, according to the investigation.

The experience was “extremely disorienting,” the pilot told investigators. And while Harriers are known to depart controlled flight at too-extreme angle-of-attack levels, the pilot said he did not remember hearing any of the cockpit warnings or cautions designed to precede such an event.

After the pilot lost control, he was coached on the radio up to the point of ejection more than a minute later. He never regained full control of the aircraft, however.

“The jet did not recover, and departure progressed into an upright spin to the right,” the pilot said in a statement to investigators. “… I entered and held anti-spin inputs until the jet showed no sign of recovery.”

While the cause of the crash was not explicitly stated, the investigators discussed potential problems that can exacerbate angle-of-attack limits and potentially cause an aircraft to stop responding to controls. External fuel tanks were one such factor, the report found.

It also discussed “lag” scenarios following extreme maneuvering in which the angle of attack shown on the pilot’s head-up display is less than the actual angle of attack, possibly allowing the aircraft to reach stall conditions without the pilot’s knowledge.

While the command redacted much of the discussion by unit commanding officers about the investigation, both the 31st MEU commander and Nicholson praised the efforts of the Japanese Self-Defense Force, which dispatched aircraft to help Air Force assets pull the pilot uninjured from the water.

“This unfortunate incident highlights the close cooperation and professionalism between the Japanese Self-Defense Force, our sister service, and the Marine Corps to swiftly render assistance to the mishap pilot and retrieve him from the water,” Col. Tye Wallace, commander of the 31st MEU, wrote in an endorsement of the report.

“I am confident of this continued high level of cooperation and professionalism between our host nation partners and sister service in the future,” he added.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/23/marine-harrier-departed-controlled-flight-2016-water-crash/feed/037807https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/23/marine-harrier-departed-controlled-flight-2016-water-crash/Academy Cadets: We Want to Make the A-10 Even More Lethalhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/unvnDFtkiq4/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/22/academy-cadets-want-make-10-lethal/#respondWed, 22 Nov 2017 17:28:22 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37803A pair of Air Force Academy cadets selected for pilot training are not only preparing for their day in the cockpit — they’re also looking to boost the performance and lethality of the A-10 Warthog.

Cadets 1st Class Jon Clegg and John Potthoff have been working at the academy “to research decreasing maintenance requirements and increase munitions capability,” according to a service release.

“We’re working together to investigate replacing the existing leading-edge slat system with a fixed leading-edge droop to reduce complexity on this important aircraft,” Potthoff said in the release.

Dr. Thomas Yechout, their aeronautics professor, is assisting with the research. Yechout said the leading-edge slat system “uses a gap to accelerate airflow during flight.” However, a leading-edge droop may reduce engine stalls, possibly translating into lower maintenance costs and more available aircraft, he said.

But the cadets not only want to produce a smoother flight — they want to strap more rockets to the Fairchild Republic-made Thunderbolt II.

The A-10 is a Cold War-era ground-attack plane known for its iconic gun designed to shred tanks and its tough titanium armor designed to take hits and keep flying.

Clegg and Potthoff believe the A-10 can carry more munitions if the number of pods that carry rockets could be increased.

“Their tasking was for us to evaluate and define the aerodynamic effects and the performance implications of tripling the number of rocket pods,” Yechout said. “This included assessing the changes in aircraft range, endurance and maximum speed.”

But while many an A-10 enthusiast would like to see the planes flying “indefinitely,” the Air Force more likely means “into the foreseeable future.”

The argument to keep the close-air-support mission aircraft — for now — is due to pressure from congressional members such as Arizona Republicans Sen. John McCain, a former Navy pilot, and Rep. Martha McSally, who flew A-10s during her Air Force career.

The service — facing financial pressure driven by spending caps known as sequestration — made multiple attempts in recent years to retire the Warthog to save an estimated $4 billion over five years and to free up maintainers for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the stealthy fifth-generation fighter jet designed to replace the A-10 and legacy fighters.

In September, Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, commander of Air Force Materiel Command, told Defense News that if the A-10 fleet does not receive new wings before the service life of the current wings runs out, some squadrons will begin retiring.

Clegg and Potthoff profess they have solutions for the platform as a whole.

Last year, the cadets conducted analyses on an A-10 Thunderbolt stripped for a maintenance overhaul at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

“I was able to perform analyses on real-world problems and see how my work has the potential to impact those on the operational side,” Clegg said.

Clegg and Potthoff first presented their research to the A-10 special projects office program manager and staff last May and will give a new presentation in January, Potthoff said.

“We may have an entirely new project after the January briefing,” he said. “One thing is certain, we will continue to do research to support the A-10 and increase its combat capability.”

The two cadets are scheduled to graduate in May, the release said.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/22/academy-cadets-want-make-10-lethal/feed/037803https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/22/academy-cadets-want-make-10-lethal/Javelin Anti-Tank Missiles from US Army Stockpile Headed to Eastern Europehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/VvaZ4YyE_KE/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/21/javelin-missiles-army-stockpile-eastern-europe/#respondTue, 21 Nov 2017 20:26:33 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37798The U.S. plans to transfer hundreds of Javelin anti-tank missiles from the U.S. Army stockpile to the government of Georgia in Eastern Europe.

The State Department notified Congress it has approved a potential $75 million sale of more than 410 Javelin missiles made by Lockheed Martin Corp., the world’s largest defense contractor, and Raytheon Co., the world’s biggest missile-maker, according to a statement Monday from the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

The sale calls for 410 Javelin missiles; 72 Javelin command launch units with spares; 10 basic skills trainers; and up to 70 simulated rounds; as well as U.S. government and contractor technical assistance, transportation and other related elements of logistics and program support.

“This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by improving the security of Georgia,” the announcement states. “The Javelin system will provide Georgia with increased capacity to meet its national defense requirements. Georgia will have no difficulty absorbing this system into its armed forces.”

It goes on to say, “These missiles are being provided from U.S. Army stock and the CLUs will be obtained from on-hand Special Defense Acquisition Fund (SDAF)-purchased stock.”

The Javelin is a portable, anti-tank system developed for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, according to the Military.com equipment guide. Highly lethal against tanks with conventional and reactive armor, the weapon provides a medium anti-tank capability to infantry soldiers, scouts and combat engineers, the guide states.

The Army requested funding to buy another 794 of the shoulder-fired munition in fiscal 2018, though the service identified a shortfall of 373, so lawmakers in Congress agreed to purchase a total of 1,167 for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, according to information released by the House Armed Services Committee.

After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, the U.S. recognized the independence of Georgia, according to a 2014 report from the Congressional Research Service. Georgia went to war with Russia for five days in 2008 over the Russian-backed states South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where thousands of Russian troops remain, according to CRS.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/21/javelin-missiles-army-stockpile-eastern-europe/feed/037798https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/21/javelin-missiles-army-stockpile-eastern-europe/US Plans $10B Sale of Missile Defense System to Polandhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/gfApSxfSR4I/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/20/us-plans-10b-sale-missile-defense-system-poland/#respondMon, 20 Nov 2017 23:28:12 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37790The U.S. plans to sell Poland more than $10 billion in missile defense technology, according to a recent government announcement.

The State Department notified Congress it has approved a potential $10.5 billion sale of the Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) Battle Command System (IBCS) configured with Patriot missiles and modernized sensors and components, according to a Nov. 17 statement from the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

The command-and-control system is developed by Northrop Grumman Corp. and designed to provide enhanced aircraft and missile tracking by connecting to any number of radars and interceptors, including the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) made by Lockheed Martin Corp.

As the centerpiece of the U.S. Army’s planned integrated air and missile defense technology, IBCS’ open architecture is designed to be compatible with “any shooter, any sensor.” The system in August completed a development test at Fort Bliss, Texas, targeting “hundreds of tactical ballistic missile threats” using different radars and interceptors, according to Northrop.

The foreign military sale to Poland calls for AN/MPQ-65 radar sets, M903 launching stations and hundreds of PAC-3 MSE missiles, among other components.

In a foreign military sale, known in military parlance as FMS, the U.S. buys weapons or equipment on behalf of a foreign government. Countries approved to participate in the program may obtain military hardware or services by using their own funding or money provided through U.S.-sponsored assistance programs, according to the agency’s website.

Poland is in the midst of a decade-long, $35 billion program to outfit its armed forces with updated equipment, from tanks and helicopters to missile defense systems, according to the Congressional Research Service.

While maintaining close relationships with NATO allies including the U.S. is key to its defense strategy, Poland has also signaled interest in preparing to “defend itself without immediate assistance from its allies,” according to a 2016 report from CRS.

The possible transaction marks the latest missile-defense effort by the Poles.

The government of Poland in 2016 broke ground on an “Aegis-Ashore” site designed to house radar and a couple of dozen SM-3 interceptors and expected to be completed in 2018, according to CRS.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/20/us-plans-10b-sale-missile-defense-system-poland/feed/037790https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/20/us-plans-10b-sale-missile-defense-system-poland/Troop Surge in Afghanistan Completed; 14,000 Now on Groundhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/OxdLxqooi8M/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/17/troop-surge-afghanistan-completed-14000-now-ground/#respondFri, 17 Nov 2017 19:31:29 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37787President Donald Trump’s troop surge in Afghanistan has essentially been completed, boosting the number of service members on the ground from 11,000 to 14,000, the Pentagon said Thursday.

“We’ve just completed a force flow into Afghanistan,” Marine Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff Director, said at a news conference.

“The new number for Afghanistan is now approximately 14,000 — might be a little above that, might be a little below that, as we flex according to the mission,” he said.

“With the additional forces that the commander has identified as needed, and that [Defense Secretary Jim Mattis] and the president have approved, the new approximate number for Afghanistan is 14,000,” McKenzie said.

Trump announced in August that he had reluctantly agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan at the request of Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and the NATO Resolute Support mission.

Trump said at the time that he was going against his initial instinct, which was to withdraw forces and end the U.S. commitment to the 16-year-old war in the face of gains by the Taliban, failed attempts to start peace talks, the surge in the poppy trade, and ongoing corruption in the Kabul government and military.

Nicholson began lobbying for more troops last February, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that the war was at a “stalemate.”

He has since said repeatedly that he would use additional troops to boost air power and allow U.S. advisers to coordinate more closely with the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) at lower levels of the command structure.

In a prime-time address in August, Trump declined to say how many additional troops would be sent to Afghanistan.

“We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plan for further military activities,” he said. “I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.”

Mattis later said the number of additional troops going to Afghanistan would be in the range of 3,500. He also pledged more transparency from the Defense Department on the actual numbers of troops on the ground in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, as opposed to the official counts made public, or Force Management Levels (FML).

“The secretary has determined we must simplify our accounting methodology and improve the public’s understanding of America’s military commitment in Afghanistan,” Dana White, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said at a news conference Aug. 29.

For years, the Pentagon has conceded the discrepancy between the FMLs for Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and the actual numbers of troops on the ground.

Pentagon officials have attributed the difference to overlaps in troop rotations and the presence of troops on temporary assignments who were not counted in the FMLs, such as the Marines with .155 artillery batteries sent into Syria earlier this year.

Until late August, the FML for Afghanistan had been 8,400 but, on Aug. 29, White said the actual number was 11,000. White and McKenzie also said the DoD is working on releasing more accurate numbers for Iraq and Syria.

At the Pentagon news conference Thursday, McKenzie again gave the FML numbers for Iraq and Syria — 5,262 in Iraq and 503 in Syria.

“Now, we’re going to come back,” McKenzie said, “and apply the same process to Iraq and Syria that we have to Afghanistan, begin to give you rounder numbers than what I’ve just given you right there,” but he gave no timeline for when the more accurate numbers would be released.

The announcement that 14,000 U.S. troops are now in Afghanistan came as something of a surprise.

“There has been a slight delay,” and “it will take time to build up the force in Afghanistan,” he said at a news conference.

McDew confirmed the ongoing delays.

“We are now maybe a week-and-a-half or so in delay or a few days in delay,” he said following the reprioritization to the hurricane relief mission.

In the global transportation business, McDew said delays are somewhat standard. “However, if you are on the receiving end of those delays, it’s a big deal. So I take every one of [those delays] seriously.”

He said elevating the command and a healthy budget environment would help streamline the process.

“The not-so-cool part is that nobody knows who we are,” McDew said during his speech, referring to TransCom, headquartered at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

He continued, “We’re a global force. I’ve tried for a long time to actually get my term changed from functional combatant command to global combatant command. I believe the changing character of war and the way we face it today will define the challenges of our time.”

He added, “If you ask me the question, ‘Do we have enough?’ the answer is, ‘Maybe.’ But what do you want me to do?

“It doesn’t matter if you have the most lethal military in the world if you can’t get it where it needs to go,” McDew said.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/16/transcom-faces-deployment-delays-after-hurricane-season/feed/037784https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/16/transcom-faces-deployment-delays-after-hurricane-season/Pulling Frigates from Ghost Fleet Too Expensive, Navy Memo Findshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/gjUOWlnZvmo/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/15/pulling-frigates-ghost-fleet-expensive-navy-memo-finds/#respondWed, 15 Nov 2017 22:52:02 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37781In the Navy‘s push to build its fleet to 355 ships as quickly as possible, leaders have publicly discussed the possibility of pulling moldering Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates out of mothballs and revamping them for the current mission.

But an internal memo for the chief of naval operations warns such a move could cost upward of $4 billion and still leave the Navy wanting in terms of capability.

According to the Oct. 6 memo, reviewed by Military.com, restoring the 10 available Perry-class frigates to the fleet would be at best a temporary fix, and could detract from other long-term shipbuilding programs.

Instead, the memo recommended, the Navy should lean into its new frigate acquisition program and continue to modernize the existing fleet. The contents of the memo were first reported by Defense News.

In all, the Navy built 51 Perry-class frigates in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were decommissioned between 1997 and 2015 as newer, more capable platforms entered service.

In an address to the Naval War College, he said the service was “taking a hard look” at restoring the Perrys. He acknowledged, however, the challenges inherent in restoring what some have called “the ghetto fleet.”

“We’ve got to be thoughtful about this,” he said. ” … Those are some old ships and the technology on those ships is old. And in this exponential type of environment, a lot has changed since we last modernized those. So it will be a cost-benefit analysis in terms of how we do that.”

Since Richardson’s remarks, other proposals regarding the Perry class have surfaced.

While the move would not directly contribute to the Navy’s fleet size, the Virginia Republican said it would expand the service’s network around the world and prove a “helpful force multiplier.”

In a September brief with reporters, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said the ships might be a good fit for drug interdiction missions in the Caribbean, according to a report by USNI News.

Few Navy ships tend to operate in that region of the world; drug interdictions there are typically undertaken now by Coast Guard vessels.

The October memo acknowledges that reality.

“Adding ships to an unfilled mission offers little operational respite to the fleet,” it states.

According to the single-page memo, bringing 10 frigates back from the ghost fleet would cost more than $423 million per ship. An additional expenditure of nearly $40 million would be required to re-establish training support for the ships, plus a $4 million annual cost for instructors. Other “unknown costs” are likely, the memo found.

“With obsolete combat systems and aging hulls, these vessels would require significant upgrades to remain warfighting relevant for another decade,” the memo states. “Any potential return on investment would be offset by high reactivation and lifecycle costs, a small ship inventory, limited service life, and substantial capability gaps.”

And all this work and expense might be for a relatively short-term gain. The memo calculates an additional 10-year service life for the 10 Perry-class frigates. That means the ships would be back in retirement by 2050, when the Navy hopes to realize its 355-ship vision.

“Prioritizing resources toward acquisition of a multi-mission platform such as [the Navy’s future frigate program, FFG(X)] and enhanced training and maintenance would increase operational flexibility and lethality across all theaters and missions,” the memo’s authors write.

The Navy is soliciting design proposals for its new frigate and is expected to pick a design by 2020.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/15/pulling-frigates-ghost-fleet-expensive-navy-memo-finds/feed/037781https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/15/pulling-frigates-ghost-fleet-expensive-navy-memo-finds/Report: Cost of Post-9/11 Wars To Taxpayers $23K Apiecehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/aMN0hxL6GZM/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/14/cost-911-wars-taxpayers/#respondTue, 14 Nov 2017 14:14:46 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37776A university study of the costs of the post-9/11 wars has put the total at $5.6 trillion, which translates as $23,386 for each taxpayer.

The $5.6 million estimate of the costs from 9/11 through Fiscal Year 2018 was more than triple the Pentagon’s estimate of $1.5 trillion, which would work out to $7,740 for each taxpayer, according to the ongoing “Costs of War” project of the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

The much higher figures for the wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan were arrived at by factoring in “other war-related costs, including war-related spending by the State Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security” and interest on related debt, the report said.

The report said that interest on the borrowing to fund Overseas Contingency Operations, the so-called war budget for Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, has already amounted to $534 billion.

The costs for the care and disability compensation of post-9/11 veterans have been rising, and the report said that a “conservative” estimate of the costs of veterans care through 2056 was at least $1 trillion.

In 2016, the most recent year for which there are figures, the VA added 87,669 new compensation recipients to their rolls, the report said. In total, more than more than one million post-9/11 veterans now receive some disability compensation from the VA, the report said.

The VA “has been under-capacity to deal with the influx of new veterans who are eligible for services and it has had to grow its staffing levels very quickly — doubling in size since 2001 to an estimated 356,000 workers in 2017 — to manage these veterans’ care and to reduce a large backlog in processing claims for disability,” the report said.

In addition, the “Costs of War” project said that the figures took into account “that every war costs money before, during and after it occurs — as governments prepare for, wage, and recover from armed conflict by replacing equipment, caring for the wounded and repairing infrastructure destroyed in the fighting.”

“Even if the U.S. stopped spending on war at the end of this fiscal year, interest costs alone on borrowing to pay for the wars will continue to grow apace,” the report said.

“By 2056, a conservative estimate is that interest costs will be about $8 trillion unless the U.S. changes the way that it pays for the wars,” the report said.

A Defense One report on the study quoted Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as saying that “We have to recognize that we have been borrowing for 16 years to pay for military operations.”

It has been the “first time really in history with any major conflict that we have borrowed rather than ask people to contribute to the national defense directly, and the result is we’ve got this huge fiscal drag.”

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/14/cost-911-wars-taxpayers/feed/037776https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/14/cost-911-wars-taxpayers/Air Force Prioritizing Combat Units Amid Maintainer Shortage: Generalhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/TKKQ9fhol-U/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/10/air-force-prioritizing-combat-units-amid-maintainer-shortage-general/#respondFri, 10 Nov 2017 05:15:16 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37773Facing a shortage of maintainers as well as pilots, the Air Force is giving staffing priority to air combat units with high operations tempo, the service’s head of operations said Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Mark C. Nowland, deputy chief of staff for operations for the service at the Pentagon, said experienced maintainers are being reshuffled throughout the force, with an emphasis on combat-coded units. The service has recently turned to contractors to fill gaps in training units and other areas.

“We’re moving maintainers where we can into combat-coded units,” he said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. “So for instance, as we stand up F-35 [Joint Strike Fighter] units, our training units, we’re using contract solutions so that we can move our maintainers into the combat-coded units.”

“Then as we grow … and fill our maintenance manning, we will then come back and put blue-suit maintenance back into those organizations,” he said.

The Air Force announced last year it would temporarily use maintenance contractors in the summers of 2017 and 2018, according to a release. The service plans to phase out the contract support by 2020, the release said.

In February, the Air Force said it had begun adding 40 maintainer airmen per month to its ranks, an incremental boost at a time when it finds itself short roughly 4,000 airmen in the career field, according to Lt. Gen. John Cooper, deputy chief of staff for logistics, engineering and force protection.

“We were able to shave that down to about 3,400 maintainers short, and we’re planning on getting that number down to zero by the 2020-2021 [timeframe],” he said at the time.

For the last five years, the continuing problem has been to bring in young, unseasoned airmen and train them as quickly as possible to work on the fighter and bomber fleets, Cooper said.

Nowland on Thursday said that gap could potentially close faster.

“We are growing,” he said, “and we expect to close out [that number] in [fiscal 2019] to continue to fill those gaps.”

Adding new aircraft to the fleet, such as the F-35A Lightning II and the upcoming KC-46 refueling tanker, has increased the need for maintainers.

The F-35 requires at least 12 maintainers on the flightline, plus another eight in support roles, totaling 20 maintainers per aircraft, according to Air Force Times.

Other fighters such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon use roughly the same number of maintainers, but some — such as the F-22 Raptor and F-15 Eagle — require 23 to 24 combat-coded maintainers to service the aircraft, according to Air Combat Command spokeswoman 1st Lt. Carrie Volpe.

“The number of maintainers per jet will vary based on how the weapon system is coded [training vs. combat etc.],” Volpe told Military.com earlier this year.

“When compared to other fighters in the fleet, the F-35 requires the smallest number of maintainers per jet,” she said. “Regardless of the aircraft, whenever you add a new plane to the fleet, naturally there is going to be a requirement for more maintainers.”

In prepared remarks for the House Armed Services Committee, Vice Adm. Troy Shoemaker testified that some carrier air wings have already cut maintenance back from two shifts to one due to lack of manning amid constant deployments.

He said the force continues to feel the effects of the 2011 Budget Control Act, which put limits on defense spending, effective for 10 years.

“We’ve been forced to take risks in maintenance and production and, as a result, our ability to fix and produce up aircraft and therefore train aviators has suffered,” Shoemaker said in his remarks.

The Navy has been hit hard, he said, as naval presence has been increasingly required across the world.

In 2017, the service deployed four carrier strike groups around the world, he wrote. Currently, there are seven carriers underway, three in the Western Pacific.

But doing that means robbing non-deployed planes, Shoemaker said.

“Consistent with the Navy’s policy of supporting deployed and next-to-deploy forces, we were forced to cannibalize aircraft, parts and people to ensure those leaving on deployment had what they needed to be safe and effective while operating forward,” he said. “To continue to provide credible maritime forces around the world, we’ve made sacrifices at home.”

To aid the strike fighter community, which Shoemaker said has been hardest hit by readiness shortfalls, the Navy has established a “Rhino Readiness Recovery” team to highlight and tackle the impacts of underfunding and maintenance needs.

As of October, Shoemaker said, only half of all Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets were flyable, and only 31 percent were fully ready to fight and deploy.

It was first reported in February that the Navy’s Hornet community was in dire straits. At the time, 62 percent of all F/A-18s were not flyable due to spares shortages and other problems.

“The readiness level for [the Super Hornet] community has been on a declining trend for the last few years,” Shoemaker said in his prepared testimony.

He said the readiness recovery team is bringing together naval subject matter experts from across the service and teaming them with experienced industry partners.

But while the Navy works to leverage expertise, Shoemaker called on Congress to fund the service’s efforts to repair itself in a predictable way.

“We will use the lessons learned from the strike fighter community to enhance our ability to repair aircraft, predict future challenges across the aviation force, and support the warfighter in each of our aviation communities,” he said.

“Key to the success of this effort is consistent, healthy levels of aviation readiness account funding across the Future Years Defense Plan, to include investment in our aging infrastructure and needed support equipment replacement,” he continued.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/09/navy-cutting-maintenance-cannibalizing-planes-amid-readiness-crisis/feed/037770https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/09/navy-cutting-maintenance-cannibalizing-planes-amid-readiness-crisis/Lawmakers Back $400 Million for Possible A-10 Successorhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/W50FE1UTf_Q/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/08/lawmakers-back-400-million-for-possible-a-10-successor/#respondWed, 08 Nov 2017 16:59:40 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37764Key lawmakers agreed to provide the Air Force with $400 million to explore buying a new light attack aircraft for missions in the Middle East.

The $400 million figure is proposed in the negotiated fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, congressional staffers said Wednesday on Capitol Hill. The House could vote on the legislation as early as next week, with action in the Senate sometime afterward.

The Senate Armed Services Committee originally added language stipulating $1.2 billion to start procuring light attack aircraft; however, the light attack “experiment” is not currently a program of record.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain lauded the Air Force’s initiative to not only think outside the box in potential acquisition strategy — testing the product before investing — but also the experiment itself.

“The light attack experiment at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, provides an example for how rapid acquisition and experimentation can help our military procure the needed capabilities more quickly, more efficiently, and more affordably than we have in the past,” the Arizona Republican said at the time.

The former Navy pilot stressed that, while the service should sustain its A-10 Thunderbolt II fighter fleet for close-air support, “the Air Force should procure 300 low-cost, light-attack fighters that would require minimal work to develop.”

How soon the Air Force will decide whether to invest in light attack aircraft has not been determined, Goldfein recently said.

He said he wants the service to train more often with coalition partners — who may not have high-end fighter aircraft.

Goldfein, who served as the U.S. Air Forces Central Command commander between 2011 and 2013, said, “Is this a way to get more coalition partners into a network to counter violence?”

“Can I at the same that we’re looking at a relatively inexpensive aircraft and sensor package, can I connect that into a network of sharable information that allows us to better accomplish the strategy as its been laid out?” he asked.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/08/lawmakers-back-400-million-for-possible-a-10-successor/feed/037764https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/08/lawmakers-back-400-million-for-possible-a-10-successor/Chief: Commission Silicon Valley Superstars for Future Warshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/T7fNHG-cZPI/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/08/chief-commission-silicon-valley-superstars-future-wars/#respondWed, 08 Nov 2017 05:15:47 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37758The U.S. Army’s chief of staff on Tuesday appealed to young leaders as well as private industry to help the service be ready for a new age of warfare.

Speaking before an audience at the 2017 International Conference on Cyber Conflict, Gen. Mark Milley it will be up to young lieutenants and captains to figure out how the Army will fight on a future battlefield that is dominated by cyber weapons, precision fires and artificial intelligence.

These new technologies will likely bring about a fundamental change in the character of warfare, much like the emergence of rifled muskets, machine guns, aircraft and radios did in past wars, Milley said.

Just having these new technologies will not be enough, he said, adding the key will be in how young leaders bring them together more effectively than the enemy.

“I would argue that … we are not going to get it right,” Milley said. “What is important is that we get it less wrong than our adversaries.

“That is the key: It’s to get it less wrong than your opponent and then rapidly adapt and innovate as you are actually in contact in order to prevail.”

This challenge will fall to the current generation, Milley said.

“People my age do not have the answers,” he added. “We have enough brains, I suppose, to recognize that we are in the midst of change, but we are not savvy enough, we are not smart enough, we are not sophisticated enough to implement the actual changes that are going to take place.

“That rock is going to go in your rucksack, and we are counting on you for the future,” he said.

The Army also needs to take advantage of the untapped talent of private industry, Milley said.

“There is a massive amount of incredible talent in the United States right now in the world of information technology,” he said. “We need to attract those best minds.”

The Army is conducting a pilot program for direct commissioning, so professionals in places such as Silicon Valley can come into the service as officers. The Army has used direct commissioning in the past in the medical and other specialty fields.

“I would argue the vast majority of them are great American patriots … and they would love the opportunity to serve,” Milley said.

“There is no reason why if you’ve got a brilliant person out there, who wants to serve and is all of 35 years old and the guy created two start-ups and now he makes cars that don’t run on gas. … We ought to try to get them, even if it’s only for 24 months,” he said.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/08/chief-commission-silicon-valley-superstars-future-wars/feed/037758https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/08/chief-commission-silicon-valley-superstars-future-wars/Trump Wants to ‘Make A Deal’ With North Koreahttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/TTMJc8vgrag/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/07/trump-wants-make-deal-north-korea/#respondTue, 07 Nov 2017 15:49:33 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37753President Donald Trump stressed the strength and resolve of the U.S. military Tuesday while stating that his first priority is to “make a deal” with North Korea to avoid war.

“It makes sense for North Korea to come to the table and make a deal that is good for the people of North Korea and for the world,” he said on the first day of his visit to South Korea.

At a news conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump dropped much of the “fire and fury” doomsday rhetoric he often uses on North Korea and said, “I do see certain movement” on a peaceful resolution to the crisis on the peninsula.

He did not spell out what he meant by “movement” in getting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to drop his ambitions to develop nuclear-tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

Trump told reporters, “I think you know me well enough to know that I don’t like talking about whether I see success or not in a case such as this. We like to play our cards a little bit close to the vest.

“I will say this — that I believe it makes sense for North Korea to do the right thing, not only for North Korea, but for humanity all over the world,” he continued. “So there is a lot of reason, a lot of good reason behind it.”

South Korea’s Moon said, “War must not break out again on the Korean peninsula. And in this respect, the United States has provided enormous support.”

Moon, who initially opposed the placement of U.S. THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) anti-missile batteries in South Korea, said, “The close coordination between Korea and the United States, and the overwhelming superiority of power that stems from the ROK-U.S. alliance, will eventually make North Korea cease its reckless provocations and make North Korea come out to dialogue for denuclearization.”

Trump made repeated references to the military option if North Korea continued with its nuclear and missile programs and refused to negotiate.

He noted the presence of the aircraft carriers Nimitz, Ronald Reagan and Theodore Roosevelt and their battle groups in the North Pacific.

“You know we sent three of the largest aircraft carriers in the world, and they’re right now positioned,” Trump said. “We have a nuclear submarine also positioned. We have many things happening that we hope, we hope — in fact, I’ll go a step further, we hope to God we never have to use.”

North Korea has thus far shown no interest in talks on a peace deal. The Korean Central News Agency, the state-run propaganda arm of the North, said Sunday, “The U.S. must drop the wild thought that the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] can respond to its gangster-like demand and should not dream of the denuclearization negotiations with the DPRK.”

Trump has previously stressed the military option in dealing with North Korea while Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have pressed a “diplomacy first” alternative.

Moon used the news conference to press upon Trump the “anxiety” of South Koreans over the potential for war with the North. About 25 million people in the greater Seoul area are within range of thousands of North Korean artillery and rocket tubes north of the De-Militarized Zone.

“I know that you have put this issue at the top of your security agenda,” Moon told Trump. “So I hope that your visit to Korea and to the Asia-Pacific region will serve as an opportunity to relieve some of the anxiety that the Korean people have due to North Korea’s provocations and also serve as a turning point in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.”

In response to a request from Congress, the Pentagon gave an assessment over the weekend which concluded that the only way to find and eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons “with complete certainty” was through a ground invasion, which would trigger a bloody conflict.

The Pentagon assessment also warned that “North Korea may consider the use of biological weapons” to counter an invasion, and that the North “has a long-standing chemical weapons program with the capability to produce nerve, blister, blood and choking agents.”

The assessment came in a letter from Rear Adm. Michael J. Dumont, vice director of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, in response to a request from Reps. Ted Lieu, D-California, and Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona.

The two lawmakers had asked for “expected casualty assessments in a conflict with North Korea,” including civilians and U.S. and allied forces in South Korea, Japan and Guam.

Dumont’s letter noted that U.S. and South Korean action against North Korea had the potential to trigger “opposition from China or Russia.”

“The Department of Defense maintains a set of up-to-date contingency plans to secure our vital national security interests,” the letter said.

“These plans account for a wide range of possibilities, including third-party intervention and address how best to contain escalation,” the letter said.

Russia and China could offer opposition, but they also “may prefer to avoid conflict with the United States, or possibly cooperate with us,” the letter said.

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/07/trump-wants-make-deal-north-korea/feed/037753https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/07/trump-wants-make-deal-north-korea/Army Goes Back to Basics on Supply, Maintenancehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/Sc59M7riul8/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/02/army-goes-back-basics-supply-maintenance/#respondThu, 02 Nov 2017 04:15:00 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37750Army Gen. Gus Perna has a vision of future conflicts in which soldiers will return to doing their own supply and maintenance rather than relying on contractors.

“My view is there won’t be contractors on the battlefield at least initially, for sure,” Perna, commander of U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC), said Wednesday at a Defense Writers Group breakfast.

“Over basically the last 15 years, supply and maintenance transactions were done by contractors as we were in Afghanistan and Iraq because we were maintaining a force cap level — only so many soldiers were allowed over there,” he said.

The limited numbers of soldiers on Forward Operating Bases, or FOBs, were focused on the enemy, and “we wanted to make sure that the soldiers in those locations were executing their most important mission,” Perna said.

Consequently, AMC brought in “contractors to do maintenance and supply on those FOBs,” he said.

As a result, the Army neglected its logistics components, Perna said.

“We needed to focus our efforts on fighting, but the skills of the soldiers, the warrant officers, the leaders on how to execute supply accountability, maintenance, and then their processes” went into atrophy, he said.

The loss of logistics skills was one of his major concerns two years ago, he said, adding, “We’re getting better every day, and we’re building back our core competence to do this.”

Another major concern was the time it took to get equipment out of prepositioned stocks worldwide and into the hands of soldiers.

“We’ve significantly reduced the time it used to take to 96 hours” from when he gets the call to draw down gear from prepositioned stocks to when it’s moving to the field, Perna said. He would not quantify how long it used to take, but said it was “significantly longer.”

Much of AMC’s focus is now on managing the logistics of the Army’s transition from a force primarily concerned with counter-insurgency operations to one that will also deal with “decisive action” against more conventional enemies, Perna said.

He also described “atrophy” regarding the availability of spare parts and maintenance for heavy equipment such Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, which are getting more frequent use in training cycles.

“So tanks, Bradleys, we’re racking up miles on that equipment, and things break,” Perna said. For spare parts, “we no longer have the breadth and the depth of that being maintained on the shelf, both in the motor pools and then all the way back to industry.

“Industry will keep on the shelf what they’re going to sell,” he said. “They don’t keep things on the shelf that they’re not selling.”

With the increase in operations tempo, “We increased our requirements for spare parts for that equipment,.and we are building a demand to demonstrate that, ‘Yes, we need the repair parts at the motor pool and we need the repair parts at industry,’ ” Perna said. “And so that’s coming along, and it’s getting stronger every day.”

He did not respond directly when asked if AMC is speeding supplies to meet current threats in South Korea and northern Africa.

“Different locations have different challenges, and we address them accordingly,” Perna said. “I am building supplies for all the combatant commanders.”

]]>https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/02/army-goes-back-basics-supply-maintenance/feed/037750https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/02/army-goes-back-basics-supply-maintenance/Crisis Response Force Commander: Deploy a MEU to the Mediterraneanhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dodbuzz/~3/YYxPjGvbe7U/
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/01/crisis-response-force-commander-deploy-meu-mediterranean/#respondWed, 01 Nov 2017 16:55:58 +0000https://www.dodbuzz.com/?p=37747After completing a seven-month deployment earlier this month, the commanding officer of the Marine Corps crisis response force for Africa has a recommendation for the brass: repurpose the task force and return a shipboard Marine expeditionary unit to the Mediterranean.

At a deployment debrief near Washington, D.C., Salene said the three-ship MEU was simply a better fit to meet the region’s needs and widely varied range of potential missions.

“A special purpose [Marine air-ground task force] is not designed to be something in perpetuity,” said Col. Sean Salene, commanding officer for Special Purpose MAGTF-Crisis Response-Africa. “It doesn’t have the same capabilities and capacities as the MEU/ [Amphibious Ready Group] team. Reestablishing that presence in the Mediterranean as a more capable, larger-capacity force, we think would work better to meet all the demands that are out there.”

The task force itself was created to fill a gap left by a Marine expeditionary unit. Routine presence deployments to the Mediterranean were curtailed in the mid-2000s due to the scarcity of available amphibious ships as combat operations in the Middle East intensified. While MEUs still spend time in the region, the bulk of deployments now are focused on the Middle East and the Pacific.

In 2012, the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi brought into stark relief the necessity of having crisis response forces in the region. The following year, the Marine Corps announced the creation of a special-purpose task force for Africa, deploying the first iteration of the unit to Moron, Spain, in April 2013.

The unit, which includes roughly 1,000 Marines, splits its time between Moron and Sigonella, Italy, and maintains several austere cooperative security locations, or CSLs on the African continent where troops can pre-stage gear and equipment if they anticipate being called to an embassy or city to respond to a crisis.

Col. Martin Wetterauer, the commander of a previous task force rotation, said in December the move would inevitably affect how the unit could operate.

“[The reduction in aircraft] doesn’t change our ability to conduct the mission, but it changes the ability to conduct multiple missions,” he said.

Wetterauer, who spoke at a debrief shortly following his deployment, also spoke of the challenges of operating from CSLs, particularly those like the one in Entebbe, Uganda, where there is no memorandum of agreement with the host country and even less available local support than usual.

Salene said the floating MEU/ARG, which functions as its own sovereign territory, eliminates a lot of the challenges facing a land-based unit.

“There’s just a lot of reasons why it makes sense,” he said.

He also argued that returning the crisis response force’s troops and aircraft to the Marine Corps would allow the service to “buy back readiness” or bulk up capabilities elsewhere.

“Our ability to satisfy the requirements with the MEU/Arg team and take the excess capacity and return it back to the force provider would then enable the service to reset whatever the global requirements are,” he said.

The Marine Corps has discussed different strategies that would return amphibious ship presence to the Mediterranean, near restive northern Africa. In March 2016, the commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, told USNI News the service was eyeing the possibility of splitting up the MEU during deployments to reach more regions.

But ultimately, the service may not be able to support a three-ship presence in the Mediterranean for some time. There are currently 31 amphibious ships in service, said Jim Strock, former director of the Marine Corps’ Seabasing Integration Division and now an independent consultant. Several more, including the America-class amphibious assault ships Tripoli and Bougainville, will begin fleet operations in coming years. But officials maintain they need 38 amphibs to meet all mission requirements around the globe.